Episode 121
The session begins with the party outside the house after having chased off the hag, killed her hellhounds, and rescued one of three children. They decide to follow the trail that Andy and Grey found earlier through the forest but didn't originally pursue. * In the meantime, Vahlka decides to take a nap on the flying carpet since walking to the location takes a couple hours. The walk is relatively pleasant and Andy points out places where machine presence can be seen. * Andy leads them to a fork in the road - one path leads to Asydyr and the other leads to a place called the Howling Grove. * Everyone heads in the direction of the Howling Grove, because of course. There's a notable change in the atmosphere as they do, with strange noises being heard in the distance. * Barkley stealths ahead. In a ravine there's a sign written in Gnomish that warns them of the dangers, to avoid the unearthly howling and advises adventurers to turn back. She returns back to the party and everyone promptly ignores the sign. * The party attempts to stealth and it, predictably enough, goes poorly. By the time they reach the sign Barkley described, the path disappears and is completely overgrown by brambles. * While the howling appears closer as they follow the path, it doesn't seem to be following them. A low mist hangs over the area when they decide to rest for the remainder of the evening, although it's difficult and Godfrey has to cut back the constantly growing plant life as Lucius is casting Tiny Hut. * During her watch, Vahlka sees a silhouette of a quadrapedal creature but it doesn't get closer and eventually wanders away. * Everyone rides on their respective mounts so they can ignore the hard to transverse brambles. A couple miles down the road, the landscape changes from forest to swamp. * Barkley sends Lyra to investigate a shining object in the near distance to discover it's one of the automatons, although it appears to be half-sunken into the water and nonfunctional. Apparently, everyone seems to be going the right way. * The party travels further until there's a break in the trees and they can see a house built into the side of one. There is another long, unearthly wail up ahead of them as well as a very large shape slightly poking out of the water. There's no solid ground to walk on, so Barkley casts Water Walk on everyone. * Barkley ventures a little closer so that she can send Lyra ahead to investigate the shape in the water, which is apparently an adult black dragon. There's also another creature, apparently the source of the howls, which is horrifying beyond all recognition. It sniffs around and begins to track Barkley, who strafes off from the group and minor illusions a sound with silent image. This doesn't work, however, and the howler keeps tracking until Barkley goes back to a group. * The howler confronts the party. Between Vahlka and Deacon, they make quick work of it. * Everyone attempts to stealth around the dragon and into the hut, an act that fails miserably on practically every level. The black dragon immediately notices them, as does two howlers. There's also a chain on the dragon's neck, attached to the hut. * One of the howlers attack Lucius, Barkley misses. The other howler incapacitate several other party members. The black dragon, who yells in Draconic that it only wants to be left alone, casts a breath weapon on Vahlka and Snowball. Snowball gets sent back to the Celestial plane while Vahlka falls back down onto the water, also having taken a hefty amount of damage as a result. * Lucius casts Lightning Bolt on both the currently present howlers and Barkley puts the most damaged one out of its misery. Andy fistfights another howler. Lucius gets scared by the dragon, which promptly does another breath weapon to hit Olivia and Vahlka again. The dragon lands on the roof of the hut once Vahlka attacks her. * Lucius goes to cast a spell, but while doing it casts something else that he hasn't before by casting Healing Word on Olivia. Barkley stabs the dragon while Andy also punches it. Grey wild magic surges while casting a spell and glues Andy to the ground. Godfrey lands a bunch of Eldritch Blasts into the side of the dragon's neck. * Vahlka trades out her Holy Avenger for Sethokesh and promptly crits the dragon twice, cleaving her skull in twain. * Vahlka, low wisdom extraordinaire, rushes into the house where she's confronted by more howlers. Olivia and Lucius run in after her. The dogs scream and rush forward, Olivia sends one running, Vahlka attacks it, and everyone else follows behind. Lucius casts Blight on the howler immediately ahead of him and kills it. From where the rest of the party stands, they can hear ominous chanting from upstairs. * Vahlka rushes up the stairs, Lucius follows. In addition to the howlers, a hag and hellhounds are also there. Vahlka falls unconscious after being harassed by dogs, but is brought back promptly from Barkley. * The hag pours some dust in a bowl and opens the gate before them. The room gets immediately colder as she does. * The hellhound casts his fiery breath against the individuals on the stairs. Godrey flies towards the ceiling and hits one of the closest howlers with another powerful series of Eldritch Blasts, which Lucius finishes off. * Barkley attempts to hit the hag, which misses. The hag attempts to cast a spell, but is counterspelled by Olivia. The hag, seeing her chances of survival narrow, runs off through the portal. * Godfrey gets up to the portal and shoots her through it with Eldritch Blast again. Lucius takes aim and expends the three charges for Sunbeam at the hag, while Barkley casts Guiding Bolt and unfortunately misses. Olivia casts Wall of Thorns to cut off her path, tangling her in it, although the hag still survives by a thread. Godfrey puts her out of her misery. * The hellhound runs off through the portal and Vahlka finishes off the remaining howler. Vahlka mentions that the portal is temporary but will last about an hour, so Barkley goes inside of it to loot the hag's body. She retrieves a jar of a worms and a crumpled note.